Profile: A outer suburbs of the Glasgow conurbanation and the rural hinterland to the south-west of Glasgow. This is an affluent, middle-class commuter area with a high proportion of owner-occupiers and professionals. Clarkston used to be a dry area until planning permission for the first pub in the area was given in 2006. Renfrewshire East has the largest Jewish population of any seat in Scotland, with almost half of Scotland`s Jewish population living in the area.

Politics: Anywhere outside Scotland this would probably be a safe Conservative seat, and up until 1997 it was one of the safest Conservative seats in Scotland. Scotland is no country for Conservatives though, it fell to Labour in 1997 under Jim Murphy. Murphy rose to the Labour cabinet and in opposition took on the doomed role of Scottish Labour leader following the 2014 referendum, losing his own seat in the subsequent SNP landslide.

Current MP

KIRSTEN OSWALD (SNP) Educated at Glasgow University. Former HR professional. First elected as MP for Renfrewshire East in 2015.

JIM MURPHY (Labour) Born 1967, Glasgow. Educated at Milnerton High School, South Africa and Strathclyde University. President of the NUS. MP for Eastwood 1997 to 2015. PPS to Helen Liddell 2001-02, Government Whip 2002-2005, Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office 2005-06, Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform 2006-07, Minister of State for Europe 2007-08, Secretary of State for Scotland 2008-10. Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland 2010, Shadow Defence Secretary 2010-2013. Shadow International Development Secretary 2013-2014. Leader of the Scottish Labour party 2015.

What seems reasonably clear is that the SNP will be on around 35%. The question is whether that’s enough to take the seat.

Definitely Tories vs SNP for the win. If the Labour vote does collapse then it’ll go predominantly Tory and they’ll take it with a defensible majority. But given the candidate Labour have selected the size of plunge needed to flip this seat blue is merely “reasonably likely”, rather than a nailed-on certainty.

This seems like a seat where the sensible thing to do is predict late, which is what I’ll do.

NTY UK: you could be right, and I note that we’re effectively quibbling over 2%. As that 2% could however determine this seat, here’s my reasoning:

There is clearly a very strong correlation between 2014 preference and the parties a voter would consider, but it’s not absolute. There will be those whose political preference is one party but the party closest to them on the most issues is another. They’re a small proportion but they’re unquestionably there. Given that this is unlikely to be seen as the election which gives the SNP the leverage necessary for another referendum (next Holyrood election seems more likely), such people can be considered floating voters, and in a constituency such as this will IMO float slightly more Tory than SNP.

The other consideration is that in the referendum pretty much everyone who would consider voting did so, whereas in 2015 there was differential turnout in favour of the Yes side due to the momentum the SNP maintained. While it’s clear that they remain comfortably the most popular party in Scotland, they do not have the momentum, and therefore the question is whether their (amazing) 2014 and 2015 GOTV operations will be as effective.

This is an SNP hold for me. There is every chance that many Labour voters are just as likely to vote SNP as vote Conservative. The dual fight for remaining non nationalist votes suits the incumbent perfectly.

Leaning towards SNP hold until I see more polls showing Tories on 30%+ in Scotland. This is probably the bellwether seat in terms of SNP/Conservative contests, with the three border seats and West Aberdeenshire being fairly comfortable Tory victories.

If you throw the LibDems into the equation, it’s also helpful to the SNP as an outlet for Labour switchers. The LibDems used to poll reasonably well here before being swept away in the 2015 landslide. The next nearest seat geographically they have any chance in is East Dunbartonshire.

POLLTROLL
Leaning towards SNP hold until I see more polls showing Tories on 30%+ in Scotland. This is probably the bellwether seat in terms of SNP/Conservative contests, with the three border seats and West Aberdeenshire being fairly comfortable Tory victories.
April 27th, 2017 at 7:52 pm

Sure, they might all be Tory victories but they won’t all be comfortable.

I think the stronger performance of the Scottish Tories will intrenched the SNP at up to 45% and 45 MP’s.

The greatest threat to the SNP was a Labour recovery. Now Scottish Labour at 13% are finished. I think the Scottish Tories do have a ceiling and unlike Scottish Labour could not break into the Cental Belt other than a couple of Edinburgh seats and East Renfrewshire.

How much influence does the Rangers-supporting vote have in this seat? (and other seats such as Glasgow South). In 1999, when I was studying politics, I saw a report in the Politics Review which said 32% of Rangers supporters voted Conservative in 1992 (versus 33% for Labour) and that this percentage had only fallen to 30% in 1997. No supporters of any other club voted Conservative in such high numbers.

However, it didn’t seem to have much effect in Glasgow South in 2015, as it went solidly SNP, and had previously been safely Labour. Tory support in Glasgow South West, where Ibrox Park is, is even weaker. I did see a report which stated that support for the parties among Rangers supporters in 2015 was SNP 32%, Labour 30%, and Tories 23%, but surely Rangers supporters, who are by and large solidly Unionist, are not likely to give their support to the SNP. Maybe posters in Scotland can help me with more information.

Labour have selected the organiser of The Better Together Campaign Blair McDougal. Their Twitter and Facebook pages ignore the result in the Holyrood constituency last May and the polls that show a swings from Lab to Con of 10 – 14% since the last general election and insist that this is an SNP / Lab contest only.

Could McDougals candidacy make it difficult for Labour to recover YES voters and also split the unionist vote stopping the Conservatives win here?

I would have thought so. But in the short term the imperative for Labour is to try to hang on to second in seats like this.

Labour won’t recover YES voters until it is the governing party in Westminster. Don’t forget, at the time of the indyref most Scots thought they would only have to put up with the Tories for one more year.

Hard to make a good prediction here.
I think Dalek’s prediction on 27th April could be about right, and it’s as yet unclear how big the Tory surge is as I think some of the Scotland figures were sub samples.

If there is a substantial rise, I think this seat would be in range.
A credible possibility
Con 35% +13
SNP 33% -8
Lab 29% -5
LD 2%
Oths 1%

I think after this result, poor Blair McDougall’s 2015 bar chart he’s been trailing around him will look even more sad.

Simply not tenable to claim he is the right anti-SNP vote here. I mean it wasn’t before these results, but it certainly isn’t after. If the Tories are picking up decent first preference support in Barrhead they’ll be able to leverage off that over the next few weeks.

If Labour agree to extend their coalition with the SNP here that will undermine him further.

Looking at the results the Tories will be feeling a bit sad not to have nicked another seat or 2, they were very, very close to a second in Clarkston, Netherlee and Williamwood.

I still think this is tight between the SNP and the Tories on the night in a general, but I’m leaning marginally more Tory after today.

Labours bar charts could still be sufficient to fool 1000s of unionist votes and allow the SNP to hold onto this unionist constituency but taking sufficient numbers of unionist votes that may have gone to the Conservatives.

It will be more difficult for Con to win seats from the SNP where they were in 3rd place in GE2015. Non-politically savvy pro-Unionist voters may be confused as to which pro-Unionist candidate to support.

One factor that may help the Cons in this seat is the toxicity of the current Labour party (compared to 2015) to the seat’s significant Jewish population. However, Labour have put forward a high profile candidate in Blair Dougall.

NB: Before commenting please make sure you are familiar with the Comments Policy. UKPollingReport is a site for non-partisan discussion of polls.

You are not currently logged into UKPollingReport. Registration is not compulsory, but is strongly encouraged. Either login here, or register here (commenters who have previously registered on the Constituency Guide section of the site *should* be able to use their existing login)